TH-350 Problems

Hello. First of all, just want to say glad to be here! I'm currently 15 and LOVE hot rods and muscle cars of all types. I also love engines and powertrains. Let me cut to the chase...

My brother has a 1958 Chevy Apache Fleetside pickup as a restoration project. He put a Chevy Small Block 400 in it, coupled to a TH-350 tranny with a full manual valve body, shift pattern P-R-N-3-2-1. The tranny has some kind of shift kit in it, but we do not know a make or model. The engine runs like hell, but the tranny will not shift into first. It shifts into all the other gears just fine, but won't shift into first. I read somewhere ( I believe one TCIs website) that you remove the governer assembly when you install the product to help with performance. We don't know what the problem is. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks! Kolby:cool:

put the truck into neutral, remove the shift cable from the tranny linkage. the cable should be in perfect alignment with the linkage and slide in and out with ease. with them still disconnected, now put the shifter in 1st gear, and now the by hand shift the tranny into 1st gear, check that they are still in alighnment with each other. if that is ok remove the small cover on the driver side at the tailend of the tranny, its a little round cup with a hold down like a brake fluid resivoir has, slide the shift control selinoid out and clean it thouroughly and coat with new tranny fluid before reinstalling it in the tranny. if that dont work there may be a bigger problem to deal with. also welcome and good luck!